THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH CUSTOMER SERVICES AND STORE IMAGE TOWARD

SUPERMARKET: A CASE STUDY IN SIBU

Wong Souk Ping

HF 5415.335

Bachelor of Business Administration with Honours WI71 (Marketing)lOll

2012

Pusat Khidmat MakJumat Akademik l lNlVERSm MALAYSIA SARAWAK

P.KHIDMAT MAKLUMAT AKADEMIK

11I1I1I1I1'ii~111I 111111 1000245053

THE RELATIONSmp BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH CUSTOMERSER~CESANDSTOREIMAGETOWARD

SUPERMARKET : A CASE STUDY IN smu

WONG SOUl{ PING

This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Business Administration

with Honours (Marketing)

Faculty of Economics and Business UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK

2012

Statement of Originality

The work described in this Final Year Project, entitled "THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH

CUSTOMER SERVICES AND STORE IMAGE TOWARD SUPERMARKET

: A CASE STUDY IN SIBU" is to the best of the author's knowledge that of the author expect

where due reference is made.

(Date Submitted) (Student's signature) Wong Souk Ping

25402

ABSTRACT

THE RELATIONSmp BETWEEN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

WITH CUSTOMER SERVICES AND STORE IMAGE TOWARD

SUPERMARKET: A CASE STUDY IN smu

By

Wong Souk Ping

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between

customer satisfaction with customer services and store image towards supermarket in

Sibu. Data were collected from the 150 respondents who have visited the

supermarkets in Sibu through questionnaire survey tool. The collected data were

analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 15.0. The

pilot test and pre-test were carried out to assess the face validity of the questionnaire.

Cronbach's Alpha was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire.

Furthermor:e, Descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient analysis and

regression analysis were used to evaluate the relationships between the variables.

The result showed that only one variable which is store facilities was positive

correlated and has significant relationship to customer satisfaction. Therefore, this

study is this study is important to reflect on the current supermarket retail activities

in Sibu in order to enhance their store facilities, satisfy their customers and stay

ahead of the retailing industry competition in Sibu.

ABSTRAK

HUBUNGAN ANTARA KEPUASAN PELANGGAN DENGAN

PERKHIDMATAN PELANGGAN DAN IMEJ KEDAI TERHADAP PASAR

RAYA: KAJIAN KES DI SIBU

Oleh

Wong Souk Ping

Objektif utama kajian ini adalah untuk mengkaji hubungan antara kepuasan

pelanggan dengan perkhidmatan pelanggan dan imej kedai ke atas pasar raya di

Sibu. Data telah dikumpulkan melalui alat soal selidik daripada 150 orang responden

yang telah melawat pasar raya di Sibu. Data yang dikumpul telah dianalisis dengan

menggunakan Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Versi 15.0. Ujian

perintis dan pra-ujian telah dijalankan untuk menilai kesahihan muka soal selidik.

Cronbach Alpha telah digunakan untuk mengukur kebolehpercayaan soal selidik.

Selain itu, analisis deskriptif, analisis, Pearson pekali korelasi dan analisis regresi

telah digunakan untuk menilai hubungan antara pembolehubah. Hasil kajian

menunjukkan bahawa hanya satu pembolehubah iaitu kemudahan kedai adalah

positif berkorelasi dan mempunyai hubungan yang signifikan kepada kepuasan

pelanggan. Oleh itu, kajian ini adalah kajian yang penting untuk mencerminkan

aktiviti pasar raya runcit semasa di Sibu untuk meningkatkan kemudahan kedai

mereka supaya dapat memuaskan hati pelanggan dan kekal di hadapan persaingan

industri peruncitan di Sibu.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study would not have been possible without the support, guidance,

cooperation and advice from certain individuals and organizations. I wish to thank

all parties who have been giving me their support, guidance and opinion for my

thesis. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr.

Mahani who guided this work, helped whenever I was in need, providing a

motivating, enthusiastic, and critical atmosphere during her busy office hours. It was

a great pleasure to do this final year project under her supervision. Her supervision

and guidance was the best things that could happen to my final year project. Not

forgetting my friends who give me helping hand during the development of this final

year project, I would like to thank for the time they used to teach me and provide me

any useful information. I would also like to convey my heartiest appreciation to my

parents and church friends for their encouragement and support when I went through

the hardship period in completing the thesis. Finally, I would like to take this

opportunity to extend my greatest gratitude and thanks to all my friends and the

respondents who contributed directly and indirectly in this thesis. The most

significantly, my overwhelming thanks to God for His blessing and gtvmg me

strength went through all the season.

Wong Souk Ping

Faculty of Economics and Business

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

vi

pusat Khidmat Maldumats~!-:~~ \JN1VERSm MALAYSIA ~

T ABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES................................................ ............... ... x

LIST OF FIGURE.................................................... . ............. Xl

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction................................................................. . 1

1.2 Background of Study...................................................... . 1

1.3 Problem Statement. ........................................................ . 3

1.4 Research Objectives ........................ .............................. '" 4

1.5 Conceptual Framework .................................................... . 4

1.6 Scope of the study ............................................................ . 5

1.7 Concluding Remark ................................................................ ............ . 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... , 7

2.2 Customer Services ................................................... '.' .. . 7

2.2.1 Store facilities. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . .... 9

2.2.2 Loyalty Scheme............. ......................................................... 9

2.3 Store Image ........................................................................................ . 12

2.4 Customer Satisfaction ........ . ......................... . ............. '" ... . 17

2.5 Relationship between variables ....................................... ..... . 20

2.5.1 Relationship between Customer Services

and Customer Satisfaction............... ...... .... ......... ......... ... ... ..... 20

vii

2.5.2 Relationship between Store Facilities

and Customer Satisfaction...... ..... ......... ...... ....... .................. ... 23

2.5.3 Relationship between Loyalty Scheme

and Customer Satisfaction.... ...... .................. .... ... ........ ........... 24

2.5.4 Relationship between Store Image

and Customer Satisfaction.... ............ ......... ........ .... .. .. ..... ..... ... 24

2.6 Concluding Remark ............................................ ... ......... . 26

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLGY

3.1 Introduction.......................... .. ............................................. . 27

3.2 Research Design .......... ... .................................................. . 27

3.2.1 Sampling Design ................................................................... . 28

3.2.2 Questionnaire Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .......... 29

3.2.3 Pre-Test............. ... ...................... ...... ........ ... ........................... 31

3.2.4 Pilot Test........................................ .... ........ .............. 31

3.2.5 Reliability Test. . ........................................ ................ 32

3.2.6 Questionnaire Distribution...................................................... 32

3.3 Data Analysis ..................................................................... . 32

3.3.1 Descriptive Analysis .............................................................. . 33

3.3.2 Correlation Analysis............................................................... 33

3.3.3 Regression Analysis ............................................................... . 34

3.4 Concluding Remark ........................................................................... . 36

CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction........ .. ....................................... ....................................... . 37

4.2 Reliability Test. .................................................................................. . 37

viii

4.3 Respondents' Demographic Characteristics ...................................... . 38

4.4 Customers' Shopping Behavior ......................................................... . 41

4.5 Correlation Analysis .......................................................................... . 42

4.6 Regression Analysis ............................ ............................ ................... . 44

4.6.1 Multiple Linear Regression between customer satisfaction,

store facilities, loyalty scheme and store image...................... 45

4.6.2 Multiple Linear Regression between customer satisfaction,

store image and customer services ............................. '" 47

4.7 Concluding Remark .......................................................... . 49

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Introduction... ............................................................... .. ...... ............... . 51

5.2 Research Conclusion ................................................ '" ....................... . 51

5.3 Research Limitations and Recommendations ....................................... . 52

5.4 Concluding Remark ............................................................................. . 53

APPENDIX A

APPENDIXB

REFERENCES............................................................... .......... 54

ix

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1 Attributes of Customer Services

in Supermarkets 8

2 Establishment of Store Facilities Attributes 9

3 Loyalty Program Design Characteristics 10

4 Loyalty Program Types 11

5 Establishment of Loyal Card Attributes 12

6 Attributes of Shopping Centre Image 15

7 Establishment of Store Image Attribute 17

8 Attributes of Supermarket Image 25

9 Interpretation of Correlation Coefficient 34

10 Findings of the Reliability Test 38

11 Respondents' Demographic Characteristics 39

12 Supermarket that most frequent visit 41

13 Have any Loyalty card in supermarket 42

14 Frequent of shopping at most visited supermarket 42

15 Correlation between customer satisfaction and store facilities 43

16 Correlation between customer satisfaction and loyal scheme 43

17 Correlation between customer satisfaction and store image 43

18 The relationship between the customer satisfaction,

store facilities, loyalty scheme and store image 47

19 The relationship between the customer satisfaction,

store image and customer services 48

20 Summary of Findings 49

x

LIST OF FIGURE

FIGURE PAGE

1 The Relationship between Customer Satisfaction with

Customer Services and Store image 5

xi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the researcher will present the background of study, and

problem statement which motivate the researcher's interest to carryon with the

research objectives that will be established. In this end of this chapter, the conceptual

framework will also be constructed.

1.2 Background of Study

Since the first Sarawak House was established in 1970, Sibu has been slow in

growing in retailing industry (William, Wong & Yeo, 2007). However, along the

year of 1999 to 2011, Sibu is revived in retail development (Chua, 2011). The latest

change of retail scene in Sibu can be witnessed by the launched of two large

shopping complexes in Sibu. They are Star Mega Mall and Giant. Sibu's first

hypermarket, Daesco hypermarket and departmental store which is the Star's anchor

tenant, also opened on July 2011 with the completion of Star Mega Mall and the first

Giant hypermarket in Sarawak has opened at Sibu on August 2011 (Chua, 2011).

As can seen, the growth of shopping complexes in Sibu, is actually slowly lead

to the intensified competition among the grocery retail especially supermarkets. This

is because most of the shopping complexes in Sibu have a supermarket outlet inside

the buildings. For example, Medan Mall consists of Medan supermarket, Delta Mall

consists of Delta Supermarket, Daesim shopping complex consists of Daesim

Supermarket, Sing Kwong shopping complex consists of Sing Kwong Supermarket,

Nguikee shopping complex consists of Nguikee Supermarkets and Farley shopping

complex consists of Farley Supermarket. Sibu also has shopping complex that does

1

not has supennarket outlet but it still houses a supennarket inside the building such

as Wisma Sanyan houses Giant Supennarket. Therefore, the emergence of new

shopping complexes in Sibu is indirectly showing the future competition among the

supennarkets.

Apart from this observation, the researcher bas done a background research by

interviewing a supervisor of one of the supennarkets in Sibu. For the purpose of

ethical concern, the supennarket will not be identified in this study and the

researcher will use pseudo-name to represent the supervisor' real name. The

interviewee is Mr. Liew who is the 8 years worker of Supennarket A and currently is

one of supervisors in Supennarket A at Sibu.

According to Mr Liew who has been an 8 years worker in Supennarket A,

nowadays shopping at supennarkets is a life style to Sibu people. Based on his

observation in these 8 years working period at supennarket A, there is a significant

growth in the numbers of people who come to shop at supennarket A. He added that

Sibu people prefer to shop at supennarkets because most of the supennarkets now

have provide a variety range of grocery products and also began to stock the non­

grocery products such as home appliances and clothes. Therefore, shopping at

supennarket has become important activity to Sibu people.

Mr Liew mentioned that supennarket A is actually aware of the competition in

Sibu. He also added that Supennarket A considers for putting more efforts in

customer service and building good store image to satisfy their customers and attract

more customers to shop at the store so that the supennarket can remain prosper. For

instances, currently they are expanding the parking space (i.e. store facility) at the

area of Supennarket A. They also provide enough supervision to the cashiers and

2

salesperson to serve the customers efficiently and politely. The common practices

inculcate including greetings and thank you note to every customers. At the same

time, Mr Liew mentioned that the loyalty cardholders have increased. He personally

observed at the cashier counters, when the cashiers ask the customers for showing

their loyalty cards, most of the customers have the loyalty cards. This indicates that

the Sibu customers are satisfied toward Supermarkets A because the loyalty scheme

is attractive.

From this background study generally describe the scenario of grocery retail

especially supermarkets in Sibu, the researcher has developed the problem statement

for this study purpose which will be discussed in the next section 1.3.

1.3 Problem Statement

In such a competitive marketplace in Sibu, the challenges are the supermarkets'

retailers need to improve the customers' satisfaction and the most importantly to

have better understanding about those supermarkets' attributes that are most

considered by customers. Therefore, it is essential for the supermarkets' retailers to

being able to improve customer satisfaction with the key elements of the

supermarket attributes in order to stay ahead of competition.

Based on the interviews with Mr Liew, probably the growing numbers of

shopping complexes is still not much affect the customers' satisfaction towards the

supermarkets at this moment. However, it is foreseeable the supermarkets in Sibu

soon will emerge to focus on improving and measuring customers' satisfaction

toward the supermarkets.

The factors that influence customers' satisfaction are arguable. Mr Liew has

mentioned that putting efforts in building store image and customer services such as

3

store facilities and loyalty scheme are critical to determine the customers'

satisfaction. However, the researcher has seen the need of empirical evidence to

statistically prove the relationship between customer services, store image and

customer satisfaction.

From the above discussion on problem statement, this study will focus on two

research questions as listed in below.

Research Questions:

1. Are Sibu customers' satisfactions toward Sibu' s supermarkets influence by

customer service?

ii. Are Sibu customers' satisfactions toward Sibu's supermarkets influence by

store image?

These research questions have ted to the establishment of research objective for this

study.

1.4 Research Objectives

In order to investigate the two research questions, the researcher has

established two researches objectives. They are:

1. To determine the relationship between customer services and

customer satisfaction toward the supermarkets in Sibu.

11. To determine the relationship between store image and customer

satisfaction toward the supermarkets in Sibu.

1.5 Conceptual Framework

The research questions and objectives of this study can be better depicted in

the following conceptual framework (i.e. Figure 1).

4

Pusat Khidmat MakJumat Akademik UNIVERSm MALAYSIA SARAWAK

Figure 1: The Relationship between Customer Service, Store image and Customer Satisfaction

[ Independent variables) [ Dependent variable]

Customer Services

• Store Facilities • Loyalty Scheme

Customer

Satisfaction

Store Image

As shown in Figure 1, this study has included one dependent variable which is

and two independent variables. The dependent variable is customer satisfaction and

the independent variables are customer service and store image of the supennarkets

in Sibu.

In this study, the research want to study the relationship between customer

services, store image and customer satisfaction. This study will look into two

specific variables of the customer service that is store facilities and loyalty scheme.

The conceptual framework presented will serve as the basic in reviewing the

literature as well as the analysis of this study. These will be respectively presented in

chapter 2 and chapter 3.

1.6 Scope of Study

This study will be conducted in Sibu. According to Sibu Municipal Council

(2011), Sibu is the second largest town in State of Sarawak, Malaysia. Sibu's

population is about 257,800 people and consists of 56,000 households (Department

of Satistics Malaysia, 2010).

5

---------,.~-'-----

Sibu has different ethnic tribes such as the Chinese, Malays, !bans, Orang Vlu

(highlanders) and the minorities of Indians and expatriates. However, Chinese

population has the highest number in Sibu compare to other ethnics tribes. They are

divided into few dialects groups where are Foochows, Hokkiens, Cantonese, Heng

Huans, Hakkas Teochews and so on. However, their main language is Mandarin.

Taking into account that Bahasa Malaysia is the national language, most of them are

fluent in Bahasa Malaysia as well as English as a medium of communication.

The reason of this study conducted in Sibu is that there is a significant

development in Sibu which is the expansion of retail sector (Chua, 2011). Explicitly,

the grocery retail sector has been evidence by the increasing numbers of

supermarkets and hypermarkets available in Sibu in the current year. However, there

are four supermarkets in Sibu is included in this study; (i) Daesim supermarket, (ii)

Farley supermarket, (iii) Medan supermarket and (iv) Sing Kwong supermarket.

These four supermarkets been selected in this study because they are located in the

strategic and highly populated residential area in Sibu town centre.

1.7 Concluding Remark

As a conclusion, this study will be conducted in Sibu in order to examine the

relationship between the customer satisfaction with customer services and store

image toward the supermarkets in Sibu area.

6

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the researcher has reviewed about the definition of dependent

variable and independent variables of this study. The dependent variable is customer

satisfaction and the dependent variables are the customer service as well as corporate

image. Specifically, the researcher has reviewed on the two sub independent

variables that represent customer service which is the facility and loyal scheme.

There are four types of relationship between the variables also discussed in this

chapter. At the same time, three hypotheses were developed for this current study.

2.2 Customer Services

Customer services are the activities that performed by the retailers to influence

the customers' transaction and satisfaction with the products or services (Cox &

Brittain, 2004). Kim, Park, & Jeong (2004) defined customer service as a group of

activities that involve customer support systems, complaint processing, speed of

complaint processing, ease of reporting complaint and friendliness when reporting

complaint. Besides, Marx & Erasmus (2006) defined that customer service is

assortment of attributes that collectively represent the service. Marx & Erasmus

(2006) also identified 33 attributes of supermarket's customer service as shown in

Table 1. However, the researcher has only adopted some of the attributes specifically

that is applicable to the current study.

7

- ~-------

Table 1: Attributes of Customer Services in Supermarkets -

Attributes of Customer Services in Su ermarket 1. Convenient Location 2. In-store credit& debit card facilities, A TM 3. ualit of roducts

out , 6. Cleanliness in stores 17. Product variet

11. Store la out 12. Friendliness of staff

roducts

-I

22. Assistance ofmana ers in the stores 23 . Modern stores 24. Assistance and interest of mana ers 25. Availabilit of bar ains

roblems

31. ueues/ waitin time at cashiers 32. Access to internet sho 33. Prices

Despite there are many items can be categorized as customer service but this

study wi11look into two specific factors that is store facilities and loyalty scheme.

These two factors will be reviewed in the following sub sections.

8

-----------~- --. . - --------------- ­

2.2.1 Store Facilities

There are different researchers have discussed few in-store elements (e.g.

Marx & Erasmus, 2006; Sit, Merrilees, & Birch, 2003; Min, 2010; Abubakar,

Mavondo, & Clulow, 2001). Thus, the reseacher has take on the in store elements as

features of store facility in this study. There are 11 items of store facility attributes

that are adopted from different past studies which is applicable to Sibu's supermarket

context as shown in Table 2. These attributes will be measured through customers'

feedbacks toward the supennarkets at Sibu.

Table 2: Establishment of Store Facilities Attributes

Item Descri tion Author 1. Convenient store location (Marx & Erasmus, 2006), (Sit,

Merrilees, & Birch, 2003, 2. 3. 4.

5. (Gilmore,

6. 7.

8.

store Store layout

Price labellin Regular advertising of specials in the media Waiting time at cashiers

Min, 2010 Marx & Erasmus, 2006 Marx & Erasmus, 2006

(Marx & Erasmus, 2006)

(Min, 2010), (Marx & Erasmus, 2006), Tom & Luce , 1995, Baldwin, 1999

9. Easy payment (Min, 2010), (Marx & Erasmus, 2006), (in-store credit & debit card facilities, (Gilmore, 2001) ATM)

10. Parking bays (Abubakar, et aI., 2001), (Sit, et aI., 2003 , Marx & Erasmus, 2006

11 . Efficiency of staff assistance to (Marx & Erasmus, 2006) solve roblems

2.2.2 Loyalty Scheme

Loyalty scheme also known as loyal program, reward program, frequency

purchasing programs, frequent flyer programs and affinity programs (e.g. Dowling &

Uncles, 1997; Uncle, Dowling, & Hammond, 2003; Lal & Bell; 2003). Loyalty

9

.-..- - - ----- --- ----- .-- - --------- ­

scheme bond the customers to an organization or products and services by offering

an additional incentive (Dowling & Uncles, 1997). YuPing (2007) has defined loyal

scheme as a program that enables the customers to accumulate free rewards for their

repeated purchase with a business. Besides, Noordhoff, Pauwels, & Odekerken-

Schroder (2004) has defined loyalty scheme as a structural effort to increase

customers' commitment. Furthermore, Uncle, et aI., (2003) defined loyalty scheme

as vehicle to increase brand loyalty, encourage postive word-of-mouth, reduce

customer's desire to consider other brands, attract more customers, encourage

customer to buy more and decrease price sensitivity.

Loyalty scheme often perform through promotion technique which it urging

customer to increase and continue their buying to get the rewards in the form of

vouchers or loyalty points (Benavent, erie, & Meyer-Waarden, 2000). Meyer-

Waarden (2008) mentioned the effectiveness of loyalty program depends on the

programs' design. Loyalty program's design characteristic Reinartz (2010) described

in two dimension as in following Table 3.

Table 3: Loyalty Program Design Characteristics

DESIGN EXPLANATION: CHARACTERISTIC:

A. Reward structure I.Hard vs. soft rewards -hard rewards comprise financial or tangible rewards

such as price reduction, promotions, free products, early check-ins -soft rewards comprise psychological or emotional benefits such as s ecial reco itions of the bu er

2.Product proposition -the LP rewards may directly link to company's support product offering or entirely unrelated choice of rewards

3.Hedonic value of -indicate the buyers can transform or redeem their rewards points into a luxury value or hedonic value of I

services or oods. such as a free fli ht 4.Rate of rewards I-ratio of the reward value to the transaction volume

in monet

10

- -

5.Tiering of rewards -buyer receives of points depends or regardless of his or her cumulative s endin level -redemption rules: prefer long accumulation periods or short accumulation eriods

of rewards

-organizations may establish loyalty programs (LPs) that reflect transactions with its own customer or allow LPs members to accumulate assets at firms that are associated with the focal firms of LP

2.Within sector vs. -degree of customers accumulate assets within the across sector same sector or across different sectors

3.0wnership -indicates who owns the LP within the network of I(focal finn vs. other finn) firms -either is the focal firm, another firm or a firm whose sole u ose is to mana e the LP

Berman (2006) also discussed the categories of loyalty programs as shown in

Table 4. Both of the loyalty program's design (Reinartz, 2010) and categories of

loyalty program (Berman, 2006) allowed this study to define the loyalty program as

promotional device to reward the members. At the same time, the researcher also

established the suitable items of loyalty scheme for this study based on Berman

(2006) and Benavent, et aI., (2000).

Table 4: Loyalty Program Types

Program Type Type 1: Members receive additional discount at register Type 2: Members receive free items when th~ purchase certain units Type 3: Members receive rebates or points based on cumulative purchases Type 4: Members receive targeted offers and mailings

According to Benavent et aI., (2000), oftenly loyalty scheme used promotion

and rewards attract customer to register for a loyal cards. Furthermore, Noordhoff et

al. , (2004) mentioned that loyatly card has function in three purposes. First, loyalt

card perform as identification function to recognize a customer as loyalty cardholder

of a particular store. Second, it serve as a memory function that store the customer's

11

- - --.---- -- - - - -------­

infonnation such as demographic and buying records at the retailer's database.

Third, loyalty card is used to reward the customers. For instance, the participation in

loyalty card customers can receive the benefits in several ways such as free products,

price reduction, extra information, or any other special treament from the retailer.

Therefore, the current study will focus on the impact of loyalty scheme that

relying on the distribution of a loyalty card in supermarkets context. Sharp and Sharp

(1997, as cited in Noordhoff, et aI., 2004) mentioned that loyalty card is a dominant

tool in many retailers' loyalty scheme. Hence, the researcher carried on this study in

Sibu context with assumption that most of the Sibu consumers owned at least one

supermarket loyalty card. The following Table 5 is the six items that was received

from different past studies and will be adopted in this study. This item will be

measured through customers' feedbacks toward the supermarkets in Sibu.

Table 5: Establishment of Loyal Card Attributes

Item Description Author 1. Accompaniment fees (Benavent, et aI., 2000); (Berman, 2006) 2. Collect points for gift

redemption/rewards (Benavent, et aI., 2000), (Berman, 2006),

, (Bagdoniene & Jakstaite, 2006) 3. Enjoy shopping privileges I (Bagdoniene & J akstaite, 2006) 4. Choices of redeemable

gifts/rewards (Bagdoniene & Jakstaite, 2006)

5. Receive relevant shopping information as a member

(Berman, 2006), ( Lal & Bell, 2003)

6. Special discount offer (Berman, 2006), (Bagdoniene & Jakstaite, 2006)

2.3 Store Image

Every retail store carries different images in the marketplace (Feng & Zhilong,

2009). Store image can be defined as customer's perception of the store and its

attributes which composite the service, pricing strategy, store location, merchandise,

promotion, store atmosphere and layout (Cox & Brittain, 2004). Store image also

12

I

defined as intangible and it is key factor to differentiate a store with the business

competitors (Kamaruddin, 1999). Besides, Pereira (2010) presented the corporate

image as identity and image of the company. Kamaruddin (1999) mentioned the term

"image" is used in different context such as corporate image, brand image, public

image, self-image and store image. However, Christensen and Askegaard (2001)

defined corporate image as general impression and estimaton of the organization

among its various audiences. On the other hand, Pereira (2010) mentioned an

individual build the image of an organization through gathering several memories,

perceptions, experiences and information that associates to the organization.

Besides, Gilmore et., (2001) stated store image as the perception and image

that comes from the customers. At the same time, Gilmore et., (2001) mentioned

customers' perception and images toward the retail environment is formed by three

stimuli dimension. Firstly, the customers formed their image toward a store based on

internal retail stimuli such as store layout, quality of employees, ease of transaction,

ease of credit, merchandise availability and merchandise assortment. Second, is an

external retail stimulus such as industry reputation, sales promotion, advertising,

format and image, public relation and social responsibility factors. Third, is customer

stimuli which refers to customers' social expectation, cultures, values, behavioural

factors and psychological factors.

Moreover, Lin and Lu (2010) discussed the corporate image as institution

image, functional image, and commodity image. First, the institution image refers to

customer's general attitude where it related with the customer's word-of mouth,

interest and preferences toward the products or services offered by a company.

Second, the functional image refers to customer's attitude formed from the

13

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